Freelance journalist and Independent political activist, open to offers in both capacities. Contact davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Accepts PayPal.

Friday, 31 March 2017

Vote David Lindsay

As long as you do not change anything, then please feel free to copy and paste this, print it off, and distribute it far and wide. Also, please feel free to make your own Vote David Lindsay posters for windows and so on, just so long as they have the very small print at the bottom:

Vote
David Lindsay

On
14th March, I was wrongfully arrested in an attempt to intimidate me out of
contesting these elections. But I have not been intimidated. On 4th May, I ask
for your vote for Durham County Council in the Lanchester Ward (Lanchester,
Burnhope and Castleside), and for Lanchester Parish Council.

I
have been brought back into active politics as a campaigner
for justice for Durham County Council’s Teaching Assistants, as a campaigner
against the proposed drastic cuts to hospital services in County Durham, and as
a campaigner against the cuts to the public transport on which, as a disabled
person, I am reliant. I was a member of Lanchester Parish Council from 1999
until I stood down voluntarily in 2013. I was a governor of Lanchester Endowed
Parochial Primary School from 1999 to 2007. I was a governor of St Bede’s from
2000 to 2008. I have lived in Lanchester since the age of 13, and before that I
lived from the age of four in Burnhope.

I
have supported the Teaching Assistants from the start.
Among other things, I secured the endorsement of their cause by several
national trade union leaders in the Northern Echo on 3rd August 2016. I
secured their landmark meeting with Jeremy Corbyn on the eve of last year’s
Miners’ Gala. I secured the signature of Angela Rayner on their petition. And I
secured the support that George Galloway expresses for them regularly on his
radio programme, and routinely to his quarter of a million followers on
Twitter, as well as at least once (23rd November 2016) in a letter to the Northern
Echo.

I
am a strong critic of Durham County Council’s incompetence.
That includes the closure of the DLI Museum, the amassing of vast reserves
while services have been and are being cut, the bailing out of Durham County
Cricket Club despite those cuts, the mismanagement of relations with the
Regional Assembly, the selling off of care homes at discounted value, the
scandal of Windlestone Hall, the circumstances that necessitated the award of
enormous compensation to a teacher, the substantial additional cost of the
failure to pay that compensation promptly, the lavish expense of entertainment
by senior Councillors and Officers, and the waste of five thousand pounds on a
bus shelter that was not on a bus route.

I
regard the current Labour Leadership of Durham County Council as no better than
in the 1960s. The Council has awarded irregular
contracts, a Council Officer has received only a caution for gazumping on land
fees, a decoy candidate has been fielded in an election (watch out for that
one), Councillors have been let off for failing to pay Council Tax, Councillors
have failed to declare interests, Councillors have promoted their own
businesses, Freedom of Information Requests have been ignored, and Opposition
candidates have been denied information.

I
am already working with trade unions, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and
Independents, to bring the whole of the Volkswagen Group’s
production for the British market to County Durham after Brexit. That would include
Volkswagen, Audi, SEAT and Škoda.What
a contrast with a Labour Leadership that, for 32 years and counting, has merely
managed other people’s poverty.

I
am honoured that my Campaign Patron is Councillor Alex Watson OBE
of Consett North, who led Derwentside District Council for decades. I support
the re-election of all sitting Independent, Liberal Democrat and Conservative
County Councillors, and the election of whoever is best placed to defeat Labour
in each Ward.